1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to tire building, and more particularly, to an improved apparatus for making a reinforced fabric from a ribbon of uncured elastomeric material in which a reinforcement is encapsulated.
2. Description of the Prior Art
U.S. Pat. No. 3,803,965, issued Apr. 16, 1974 to Alderfer, describes in some detail the apparatus and method for making reinforced fabric wherein a lead-in table and an assembly table are positioned at an angle to each other, and a shuttle head grips the ribbon of elastomeric reinforced material on the lead-in table and positions it on the assembly table at an angle to the longitudinal direction thereof. The assembly table is indexed to advance the fabric being formed at increments which allows the strips being deposited by the shuttle head to be overlapped along the edges thereof. A guillotine knife severs the strip as it is being deposited on the assembly table. The belt of fabric so formed has the reinforcement oriented at a preselected bias, and the angle between the lead-in table and the assembly table may be adjusted as a result of a prerequired bias.
The apparatus referred to above, and as described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,803,965, is representative of the state of the art and is widely used in the tire building industry. Whenever it is required to change the bias of the reinforcement in a tire, it is necessary to adjust the angle of the assembly table relative to the lead-in table and shuttle head. The guillotine is mounted to the assembly table to cut the strips so that the so-formed edges of the belt are parallel to the longitudinal axis thereof. Thus, the plane of the guillotine changes in angle relative to the shuttle head.
It has been found in practice that the pick-up plate of the shuttle head must be changed for each change in angle, since the leading edge of the pick-up plate terminates in close proximity to the guillotine blade and normally has an end edge adjacent and parallel to the plane of the guillotine.
The shuttle head defines a plenum, and a plurality of openings are provided in the pick-up plate to allow alternating negative and positive air pressure to be applied to the elastomeric strip. The face of the pick-up plate may be polished aluminum or Teflon (a trade mark of E. I. DuPont de Nemour & Co. for tetrafluoroethylene). However, it still manages to be coated with elastomeric material, such as uncured rubber, which must be cleaned at frequent occurrences.